


Do Not Go Gentle

by Quicksilver_ink



Category: Suikoden III
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5062147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilver_ink/pseuds/Quicksilver_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sana is on death's door when the bearer of True Water pays her a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Go Gentle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Suzume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/gifts).



Outside it was raining heavily, to judge by the sodden appearance of the young woman who stood, dripping, in the center of the room. The woman’s state surprised Sana almost as much as her presence. Rolling booms of thunder penetrated the stone walls, echoing mutely in the underground cavern, but this was the season for dry thunderstorms.

“How did you know where to find me?” the old woman asked her guest, rising stiffly from her chair at the table in the room’s center. Last time the other woman had been there, Sana recalled with irritated regret, she’d been able to stand straight, if stiffly. Now her back was bowed, and the wasting illness made her so slight she felt the memories in the chair opposite her must be more substantial than she. “I’m afraid I don’t have any towels I can offer you. I didn’t expect to need them.”

In truth, Sana hadn’t expected to need much of anything. She had slipped away before dawn, leaving most of her belongings behind - let them be of use to another. She’d brought with her more memories than memorabilia, a blanket, and a weary longing that still made her restless.

She had hoped – had assumed - that the peace she’d so often witnessed in others at the threshold would come when she reached this place, as the mute stone and stillness had often calmed her with their echoes of memory. But the sight of his folded jacket on the chair only sharpened the yearning. She felt homesick for something she could not name.

The youthful – _eternally_ youthful - face of her visitor made it worse. The woman before her would never know illness, would never know the weight of age, would never have to let go of this world of joy and sorrow…

Unaware of Sana’s turmoil, the visitor shook her head, shaking loose the wet silver strands that clung to her cheeks. “It’s all right, the water doesn’t bother me so much these days.” The woman paused, and Sana only then realized she was talking about the towels. “I stopped by the village first, just to be certain, but I… knew you were going to be here.”

“Is that so?” Sana stopped herself just in time from glancing down at the woman’s right hand. It would be gloved, anyway. His had always been. 

She felt herself wobble slightly.

“Are you all right?” The younger woman stepped forward, hand extended, concern on her face. “Please, sit down if you need to. I’ll try not to take too long.”

Sana didn’t bother to hide her relief as she sank back into her chair. It wasn’t worth it to bother with appearances at this point, not with so little time left. “Thank you. Now, Chris Lightfellow, let me ask you… what brings you through a rainstorm to see a moribund woman in a hidden tomb?”

Chris met her gaze evenly. The young woman’s face was composed, but some other emotion struggled behind her eyes, and crept into her voice. “I need to know if they – the Rune’s visions -- are true or not.”

Sana closed her eyes; she knew the other women did not want her desperation seen. “My husband sometimes spoke of visions that the rune gave him. They were rarely clear, and it was rarer still that he could recognize anything from them. But there are others still living who bear True Runes. Why did you come to me, who never had one?”

“Hugo is as new to his Rune as I am to mine. Geddoe has more experience than us both, but I couldn’t find a way to contact him. As for Bishop Sasarai...” The Zexen’s tone turned wry, and there was something to the set of her jaw and lift of her eyebrows that stabbed Sana’s heart like a shard of memory. “I have no desire to give such leverage to the country that drove my father away.”

“I see,” Sana said to Wyatt’s daughter. “And since I had been the one who offered True Fire to you and the other candidates...”

Chris nodded curtly. “Indeed. And…” she hesitated, then squared her shoulders. “One of the clearest visions concerned you. I had hoped, since you knew the Flame Champion, you might-”

Flame Champion. He’d never liked that title. Sana cut her off. “What have you seen?”

There was a pause. “The first… A sinking, burning ship,” the other woman said carefully. “I was looking over the ocean from the wharf, when I… well, it wasn’t exactly seeing. It felt more like being there.”

Sana opened her eyes again and regarded Chris carefully. “On the ship? Or watching from above?”

Chris shook her head. “It was if I was the ocean.” She was watching Sana’s face carefully; the older woman kept her face blank, and Chris, perhaps a bit embarrassed, amended her statement. “I could be wrong. It sounds strange to say it aloud.”

“Hmm.” He had said something like that, once. It was long ago, though, and the exact memory escaped her, and the strange homesickness tugged at her, for sun and flowers and storms. For warm arms encircling her. 

It seemed there was more to the story, because the Zexen continued. “A few days later, word came in that the _Fair Jenny_ had been attacked by pirates. They killed the crew and set fire to the ship.”

“You believe the ship the Rune showed you was that one?” Sana said, distractedly, to fill the gap the other woman had left in the conversation. The memory was just beyond the edge of her recollection, teasing her. Something about a town… and the Rune… something he had told her. Said to her. “Anything else?” Maybe the younger woman would say something that would pull that memory into focus.

“Most were just flashes of being… something. Somewhere. Nothing I could place, or even guess at… and it seems I forget everything soon afterwards.” She shrugged helplessly, the wet leather of her coat rasping at the movement. “I haven’t had very many of them, and only three have been anything I could make out or recall.”

“And one was of me?”

Chris nodded, and the steady, grim look to her face -- so like Wyatt about to relay bad news -- told Sana everything she needed to know. The old woman forced a smile, which drew confusion across the Zexen’s face. 

It should have been comforting to know that in your final moments you would not be alone, but would be -- had already been -- accompanied. To die alone was the terrible thing. Instead, Sana felt bitterness, as if she’d been cheated of something.

Those moments were drawing near, she reminded herself. There was little time to waste. “What was the third?”

The younger woman went pink. “I was holding an infant in my arms. My daughter,” she whispered, almost wistfully, and Sana felt another stab of longing, one she’d thought she’d long buried. Her beloved had died before they could begin a family. “I’m certain she was my daughter. The feeling was so definite, even before I saw that her her hair and eyes were mine.” 

Sana said nothing, and the other woman continued, filling the space with awkward words. “I know it sounds crazy, even more than the ship. I’m not even married, I had no idea if I would have children…”

“It’s all right.” Sana said, cutting her off, more gently than she thought she still could. “Have you told anyone else about these visions?”

“I...” Chris hesitated. Water beading at the bottom of her coat fell, the drops speckling the stone floor. She shook her head. “I couldn’t. They’ll walk on eggshells around me if I tell them, and I don’t think I could stand that. They do seem to know that something’s bothering me - Percival’s left off his normal teasing, and Louis keeps bringing me tea. I think Salome’s guessed it has to do with the Rune, because there’s that tight look at the corners of his eyes whenever he looks at me and doesn’t think I notice, and he practically makes a point of not looking at my hand. Roland, too. And Borus _hovers_ ,” she finished irritably.

“So you think the Rune is showing you the future?” 

Chris inclined her head. “I don’t see what else it could be. And _ he_ showed me the future of our world. I saw Brass Castle with no people. No color. As quiet as the grave.” 

There were too many people Sana didn’t know floating about in this discussion right now, about a future being snatched from her, and she was tired. She tried not to sigh. “Who?”

“The magician with the True Wind Rune – his name was Luc. He used our runes to show us-“

“The end of a world.”

“The end of our world,” Chris corrected. “Or what it would be, unless he destroyed his rune.” Her shoulders sagged. “I suppose that’s what it will be, now. I didn’t quite believe him then – I was certain we could choose our own destiny, as you said we could when you offered the True Fire Rune to the three of us. I was certain that everything I’ve chosen was my _choice_. I’d thought that when I chose to become a knight, when I became captain, and whether I marry or not, whether I have children… that these were things _I_ would decide.” Her right hand clenched into a fist, so tightly it shook. “Not things that had already been decided for me.

“I went on believing that, or at least I thought I did, until the _Fair Jenny_ was lost, just as I’d seen.” A pained look crossed her face. “I wish the vision had come sooner, so I could have at least warned them in time…”

And then the memory finally clicked into place, and Sana leaned back, smiling in quiet satisfaction despite her weariness and restlessness. 

There was still room for her to shape the future.

She cleared her throat. “My husband once had a vision of a village burning, its people lying in the streets as soldiers in blue and silver looted the place. He insisted on travelling there, right away, with or without Fire Bringer.”

Chris’s eyes widened. “Did he-“

Sana continued. “I came with him; Geddoe told him it was a fool’s errand, and that we would be far too late to do anything. He turned out to be right.” She smiled, an expression that shocked her visitor, and went on evenly, “When we got there, we discovered a peaceful village that had been part of Harmonia for hundreds of years. The story went that Harmonia had saved them from an evil magician who set the place ablaze.”

“A past bearer of the True Fire Rune?” Chris hazarded, her look turning from surprise to pensive. “So it was only a memory?”

“No doubt. I think Harmonia rewrote history a bit; in his vision, the army was very clearly attacking villagers. In the end, they probably let the village live in exchange for the Rune.”

The Zexen grimaced, but nodded.

“In your vision… where was I?”

Chris obediently pointed to one of the beds cut into the rock walls of the cave. “You were lying over there. You turned your head, sighed, and then…”

“I see…” And she did see it, her last chance to cheat Fate and to free the young woman before her of its ties. It was strange how steady her voice could be there, with her heart so full. Pain and hope warred in her chest and seemed to drag her pulse with it – making it thump irregularly through her veins. “My throat’s gone dry as a whistle from all this talking, and while you may not mind the wet so much, it’s hardly going to improve your mood. Why don’t you make us some tea?” She gestured across the room, and watched Chris notice the hideaway's small kitchen with some surprise. “Everything’s there for it.” 

Chris hesitated, then strode over to the fireplace after Sana gestured. There were a couple of pots, and a kettle. Water she got from the water barrel; there was just enough to fill the kettle halfway without tipping the container. The fire started easily enough, and within a few minutes the dry wood was blazing comfortably.

Shivering she hadn’t noticed stopped as the fire’s warmth crept into her muscles. There must have been fragments of a fire rune set into the hearth, because already her clothes were steaming. 

Chris rooted around in the cupboards for the tea as she waited for the water to boil. They were mostly empty – Sana had clearly not wanted anything left to waste. With a sigh, she started to turn and ask the woman.

A sudden, strong remembrance of old ghost stories stopped her mid-pivot.  Don’t look back.

Chris continued her search for the tea, making more noise than she needed to -- shifting tins, opening and closing cupboard doors. The crackling fire was too close and Sana too far for her to listen for the woman’s breathing, but even above her own clatter, Chris’s ears strained. She thought she heard a few sighs, and once the groan of a wooden chair under a person’s shifting weight.

“Try the bottom shelf on the left,” Sana called, just as Chris found the tin. There was barely enough inside to rattle when she shook it.

The singing of the kettle broke the spell. She prepared the tea, a ritual made uneasy in the unfamiliar kitchen, then shifted a few logs in the fire with a poker while it steeped. When she thought it was done -- she wasn’t sure of this blend’s timing -- she poured it out into a chipped mug, lifted her chin, and turned around.

Sana still sat at the table, her bent frame making her look like she was leaning over the table’s surface.

Chris set the steaming mug on the table so she could take one withered hand in both her own, and check the wrist’s pulse. 

Nothing. 

She took a deep breath, blinked against the slight prick of tears, and closed the old woman’s eyes with a steady hand. 

Chris looked up, across the room at the empty beds set into the wall. Then back at the earthly remains of the woman who had offered her a choice of destinies.

Slowly, she poured the mug of tea out on the ground at the woman’s feet. The dark liquid rushed over the stonework, running in a myriad small, branching paths along the seams between and groves in the stones. 

Chris stood back and pressed her fist to her chest in a knight’s salute. 

Then, dry-eyed, she walked back out into the rain.


End file.
